Somalia

Whether Sheikh Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys’ last week defected or escaped from Al Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen was still unclear as Africa Confidential went to press but mo...

After another week of fighting for control of Kismayo port, Ahmed Mohamed Islaan 'Madobe' and his Ras Kamboni militia have strengthened their grip over the region and its trade rou...

Sheikh Hassan Dahir 'Aweys', the 78-year-old eminence grise of Somali Islamism, has broken with Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen (Al Shabaab) this week. Although Sheikh Aweys, who ...

On 15 May and by a resounding margin, elders meeting at the Jubaland conference in the southern port of Kismayo elected Ahmed Mohamed Islaam ‘Madobe’ as President of the emerging r...

London’s Somalia Conference arrived with a little less fanfare this year. The press conference was held in a smaller room, the United States Secretary of State and most African hea...

The follow-up to the 2012 London Conference on Somalia should be ‘a substantial conference with substantial outcomes’, said a senior British diplomat of the second London gatheri...

Whether or not Puntland is ‘ready for democracy’, the government has postponed the local elections due on 15 May. There is no clear notion of when, if ever, they will occur. Presid...

The head of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency, General Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, quit on 25 March amid growing fears about security in Mogadishu. The capital suffere...

For weeks, diplomats in Kenya have fretted about the brewing discord between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia and Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. They finally met in Nairobi just b...

The raid by French Special Forces on 11 January on the place where Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen was believed to be holding a French intelligence officer may have been a trap,...